Monday, September 8, 2014

Hair for Sale

When I was
young I, like almost every other girl, read Louisa May Alcott’s Little
Women. Many years have passed since then but there are still some scenes
from the novel I remember clearly. One of them is how Jo sold her hair for
twenty-five dollars, quite a sum then, to help finance her mother’s journey to
her sick father. What made even more of an impression on me was Jo crying in
bed later that evening, not because her father was ill, but because she missed
her hair. I also had a cry or two about my hair as I was growing up. Now,
though, I know that hair almost always grows back.

In Judaism there’s
a Jewish custom to wait until a boy is three years-old to give him his first
haircut. The reasoning behind this tradition is that man is compared to a tree.
It’s forbidden to pick the fruit of a tree until after it has grown for three
years. Likewise, a little boy’s hair is left uncut until his third
birthday. Then it’s usually cut at a
gathering of family and friends with everyone taking a snip of the child’s hair
and giving him a blessing. Following the haircut the boy receives a kepah,
his first pair of tzitzit, and begins to learn the letters of the Hebrew
alphabet, commencing his Jewish education.
Of course, as with any Jewish ritual, there are refreshments.

All of this
was not a practice in our family. My sons had their first haircut usually
before they were a year old. They, in turn, though, adopted the custom and I
have been to some lovely haircutting parties. As the grandmother I never had to
deal with brushing out tangles and snarls, checking for lice and eggs, or
washing out sand and dirt. I could just enjoy the celebrations. And I did.

Most of my
grandsons came to their haircutting parties with their hair in a simple
ponytail. One of them, however, had a most interesting hairstyle with over a
dozen braids joined to his scalp. Instead of taking a snip of his hair we each
cut a braid. Those braids were gathered in a bag and donated to Zichron Menachem,
an Israeli association for the support of children with cancer and their
families. It offers professional supportive counseling, runs a day center and
camps, funds a guest house, maintains a staff of volunteers to watch children
in the hospital, and more.

Another
function of Zichron Menachem is to fashion wigs for children undergoing
chemotherapy. They receive all kinds of hair donations, mostly from selfless
teenage girls. This one grandson had such long, lovely hair that we thought his
hair could be used, also. However it was only 24 centimeters long and Zichron
Menachem requires 28. That didn’t mean that grandson could not help out a
cancer patient, though.

Just like in
Jo’s days there’s a market for beautiful, healthy hair. Zichron Menachem sold
my grandson’s long, black locks to help finance their many projects. At age
three this grandson not only took his fist step towards learning Torah. He also
began a path of doing good deeds. May he continue for many, many years.

2 comments:

I don't think I realized how important hair is until I lost all of mine to chemotherapy. I have seen some beautiful bald women. I however, was just plain ugly. I looked just like my Dad. Not good for an already bruised body image from breast cancer. I cried when handfuls of my hair fell out. I chose to wear scarves and hats, but donating for wigs is real charity. You help make someone feel whole. Each year, my nursing students donated to "Locks of Love" to make children's wigs. What a Mitzvah!Esther

Aim of Blog

Emunah, faith in God, does not mean believing only good things will happen; it means believing that whatever God does is for the best. I wrote these words at a time when drive-by shootings and suicide bombers had become almost weekly, if not daily, tragedies. Now, more than ten years later, the words are no less true. Whatever HaShem does is for the best. It is my hope to post articles, advice, and homey stories everyweekwhich will reinforce this fact. And now, a special thanks to:

Batya Medad, my neighbor and experienced blogger. Without her I would never have been able to set up

About Me

Born in Wichita, Kansas, I became a Baalat Teshuva, newly religious, in Phoenix, Arizona while attending ASU. After twelve years of marriage my husband and I made Aliyah with five children and settled in Shilo in the heart of Israel. Two more children joined the family as have daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, and grandchildren, Baruch HaShem. My favorite past times are learning, sewing, hiking, reading, cooking, baking, enjoying my family and friends, and, of course, writing. My first novel, Sondra’s Search, was published in 2007 and I am working on the sequel.